Smith & Coventry had made numerous improvements on Mr. Whitworth’s tools. I have already mentioned their arrangement which made it possible to take up the wear of the lathe spindle bearings. In the radial drill, an invention of Mr. Whitworth’s, as made by him, in order to bring the drill to the right position longitudinally, the workman was obliged to go to the end of the arm and turn the screw. From this point he could not see his work, and had to guess at the proper adjustment. I have seen him in the Whitworth works go back and forth for this purpose three or four times, and have always doubted if he got it exactly right after all. Smith & Coventry introduced an elegant device by which the workman was able to make this adjustment without moving from his place. They also first made the arm of the radial drill adjustable vertically by power. By simply reversing the curve of the brackets under Mr. Whitworth’s shaper tables, they made these unyielding under the pressure of the cut. This firm also first employed small cutting tools set in an arm which was secured in the tool-post, and put an end to tool-dressing by the blacksmith, which had caused a fearful waste of time, and also encouraged idle habits among the workmen. This improvement has since come into common use. Their system of grinding these small tools interested me very much. The workman never left his machine. He was provided with a number of tools, set in compartments in a box. When a tool became dull he took it out, set it in the box upside down, and substituted another. A boy went regularly through the shop, took up all the upside-down tools, ground them, and brought them back. The grindstones were provided with tool-holders and a compound screw feed, by which the tools were always presented to the stone at the same desired angle, and were prevented from wearing out the stone by running into grooves or following soft spots. The whole surface of the stone was used uniformly and kept in perfect condition.
I picked up in that shop the solid wrench made with the elegant improvement of inclining the handle at the angle of 15 degrees from the line of the jaws; enabling it, by turning the wrench over, to be worked within a radial angle of 30 degrees. This adapted it for use in tight places. I brought the idea home with me and always supplied my engines with wrenches made in that way. I offered the plan to Billings & Spencer for nothing, but they did not think it worth making the dies for. Mr. Williams was more appreciative. I believe it is now in quite common use.
At that time toolmaking in this country, which has since become so magnificently developed, was in many important respects in a primitive condition, and I proposed to introduce into my shop every best tool and method, adapted to my requirements, that I could find in England. For this purpose I visited and carefully studied all the tool works of good standing, and my final conclusion was that the best tools for design, strength, solidity, facility of operation and truth of work were those made by Smith & Coventry. This may be guessed from the few examples I have given of their fertile mindedness and advanced ideas. So I prepared a careful list of tools that I proposed to order from them in time to be ready for use as soon as my shop should be completed. I found also the remarkable fact that I could obtain these tools, duty and freight paid, decidedly cheaper than corresponding inferior tools could then be got from American makers.
Before bidding good-by to England, I must tell the luck I had in endeavoring to introduce Mr. Allen’s double-opening slide valve, shown in the general view of my London exhibit, now in common use the world over. No locomotive engineer would even look at it. Finally I got an order from Mr. Thomas Aveling for one of these valves with single eccentric valve-gear, to be tried on one of his road locomotives or traction engines. Mr. Aveling is known to fame as the inventor of the road locomotive and steam road roller. He once told me how he came to make this invention. He was a maker of portable engines in Rochester, which was the center of a wheat-growing district. These engines were employed universally to drive threshing machines. Horses were used to draw both the machine and the engine from farm to farm. The idea occurred to him that this was almost as foolish as was the practice of the Spanish muleteers, in putting the goods they transported on one side of the animal and employing a bag of stones on the other side to balance them. Why not make the engine capable of moving itself and drawing the threshing machine, and dispense with the horses altogether? So he applied himself to the job and did it. Then it was found that the self-propelling threshing-machine engines could draw a great many other things besides threshing machines, and the business grew to large proportions.
Mr. Aveling made an engine with valve and valve-gear from my drawings, and I took a ride with him on it from Rochester to London, the engine drawing two trucks loaded with the two halves of a fly-wheel. The performance was entirely satisfactory. He said the engine was handled more easily than any other he ever made, and it maintained its speed in going up hill in a manner to astonish him, which was accounted for by the double valve opening. The little engine ran very rapidly, about 300 revolutions per minute, being geared down to a slow motion of the machine, about 4 miles travel per hour. With a single opening for admission it had admitted only a partial pressure of the steam, but the double opening valve admitted very nearly the whole pressure and made a sharp cut-off, all which I showed by the indicator. He told me that he was then filling a large order for traction engines for Australia, and this valve and valve-gear were the very thing for them. I went back to Manchester happy in the satisfaction of having accomplished one thing in the engine line at any rate.
A few weeks after, being in London, I went to Rochester to see how the new valve-gear was progressing. The first thing I saw was my valve and valve-gear hanging up in the storeroom. Mr. Aveling explained to me that he had been advised by engineers, whose advice by his contract with his financial partner he was obliged to follow, that the narrow faces on my valve would wear away faster than the wider faces, and the valve would come to leak, and if he put it on his engine it would ruin his business. He did not believe it; it seemed to him absurd, but he was powerless.
This was the nearest approach I ever made myself towards the introduction of this valve. In 1875 I seemed to have a promising opening. I received a note from Mr. M. N. Forney, then editor of the Railway Gazette, calling my attention to this valve and its description in his “Catechism of the Locomotive,” just published, and stating that this was the only patented invention in the book.
He added that he had had conferences with Mr. Buchanan, foreman of the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad repair shops in New York City, about trying this valve on their locomotives, and Mr. Buchanan would like to see me.
On my calling, Mr. Buchanan asked me what arrangement I was willing to make. I replied that they might put the valve on six locomotives free of royalty. If these valves worked well I would give them a license on liberal terms. He said he had an express locomotive then in the shop for which he was making new cylinders; these were already bored and the valve seats planed, but not yet trimmed, and in this state there was room to put in these valves, which he would do; they would be ready in about a fortnight, when he would send me word, and would be glad to have me go up to Albany and back on the locomotive and indicate the engines. I have been waiting for that “word” ever since.
A few days after I met in the street an acquaintance, who asked me if Mr. Buchanan had agreed to put the Allen valve on an engine. I replied that he had. Why, said he, Buchanan will no more dare put that valve on unless Commodore Vanderbilt orders him to, than he would to cut his head off. He will never persuade the old man to give that order, and you will never hear of it again; and I never did.